Perforations in bodily walls may be naturally occurring, or formed intentionally or unintentionally. In order to permanently close these perforations and allow the tissue to properly heal, numerous medical devices and methods have been developed employing sutures, adhesives, clips, staples and the like. Many of these devices typically employ one or more sutures, the strands of which must be brought together and fixed in place in order to close the perforation, and thereafter cut and removed from within the patient's body.
Manually tying suture strands together to close a perforation can be very complex and time consuming. For example, a significant level of skill and coordination is required by the medical professional, especially when the perforation and sutures are difficult to access within the body, such as in endoscopic or laparoscopic procedures. The numerous difficulties with manually tying and cutting sutures are well documented. In order to address these and other issues of manual suture tying and cutting, various automatic suture tying systems have been developed. Unfortunately, such automatic systems are often complex and costly, difficult to use, and limited to use in certain situations.